EMC IP Holding/Dell Assigned Twenty Patents

Managing redundant arrays of independent drives
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, (a Dell Technologies, Inc. company) has been assigned a patent (11,074,146) developed by Liu, Bing, Tianjin, China, for “method, device and computer program product for managing redundant arrays of independent drives.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to method, device and computer program product for managing Redundant Arrays of Independent Drives (RAID). The method comprises obtaining a log parameter associated with a status of a drive extent in the RAID from log pages of the RAID. The method also comprises determining, based on the log parameter, a prediction of a failure of the drive extent within a predetermined time interval. Moreover, the method further comprises in response to a determination that the drive extent is expected to fail, determining a reconstruction sequence of the RAID for a reconstruction of the RAID, such that the drive extent expected to fail within the predetermined time interval has a higher reconstruction priority than other drive extents in the RAID.”

The patent application was filed on February 19, 2020 (Appl. No.16/794,455).

Storage management
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (11,061,788) developed by Dong, Jibing, Han, Geng, Gao, Hongpo, Kang, Jianbin, and Gao, Jian, Beijing, China, for “storage management method, electronic device, and computer program product.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Storage management techniques involve, in response to a request to write data to a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) determining whether there is an offline disk in a plurality of storage disks constituting the RAID, the RAID comprising a plurality of stripes, each of the plurality of stripes comprising a plurality of storage blocks divided from the plurality of storage disks, in response to determining that there is an offline disk in the plurality of storage disks, selecting a target stripe from the plurality of stripes, the target stripe having a storage block allocated from the offline disk for storing parity information, and writing the data to the target stripe. In this way, the performance of data write can be improved in presence of an offline disk. In addition, the performance of subsequent data read can also be improved potentially.”

The patent application was filed on March 20, 2020 (Appl. No.16/825,073).

Offloading error processing to raid array storage enclosure
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (11,055,188) developed by Alkalay, Amitai, Kadima, Israel, Glimcher, Boris, Bnei Brak, Israel, Schneider, Zvi, and Hadav, Aric, Tel Aviv, Israel, for an “offloading error processing to raid array storage enclosure.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage system comprises a plurality of enclosures and a storage controller. Each enclosure comprises at least one processing device and a plurality of drives configured in accordance with a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) arrangement. The storage controller obtains an input-output request to read a target data page and issues a command to the at least one processing device of a given enclosure. Responsive to receiving the command, the at least one processing device of the given enclosure obtains data pages associated with a given stripe from the plurality of drives of the given enclosure. The at least one processing device rebuilds the given stripe based at least in part on the obtained data pages, obtains the target data page from the rebuilt given stripe and provides the obtained target data page to the storage controller.”

The patent application was filed on April 12, 2019 (Appl. No.16/383,367).

Managing wear balancing in mapped RAID storage
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (11,055,008) developed by Dalmatov, Nickolay, St. Petersburg, Russia, Wahl, Michael P., Bulverde, TX, and Gao, Jian, Beijing, China, for “managing wear balancing in mapped RAID storage systems.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method, computer program product, and computing system for managing wear balance in a mapped RAID storage system. According to embodiments, mapped RAID extents, which are comprised of storage disk extents, are assigned to particular mapped RAID groups based on one or more parameters related to wear experienced by disk extents associated with the RAID extent. Endurance parameters are measured and can be used by machine learning modules to predict future wear levels enabling predictive wear balancing in mapped RAID storage systems. Embodiments can be used when initially forming a mapped RAID group, when adding storage to an existing mapped RAID group, or when managing the ongoing performance of a mapped RAID group or storage system.”

The patent application was filed on August 2, 2018 (Appl. No.16/052,999).

Managing RAID group that uses storage devices of different types
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (11,042,324) developed by Shveidel, Vladimir, Pardes-Hana, Israel, Kucherov, Anton, Dudley, MA, Gazit, Ronen, Tel Aviv, Israel, and Shabi, Uri, Tel Mond, Israel, for a “managing a raid group that uses storage devices of different types that provide different data storage characteristics.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A technique is directed to managing a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) group. The technique involves forming the RAID group from storage devices of different types that provide different data storage characteristics. The technique further involves receiving input/output (I/O) requests, and performing I/O operations on the RAID group in response to the I/O requests.”

The patent application was filed on April 29, 2019 (Appl. No.16/397,049).

Storage with prioritized RAID rebuild
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (11,036,602) developed by Tal, Doron, Haifa, Israel, for a “storage system with prioritized RAID rebuild.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage system is configured to establish a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) arrangement comprising a plurality of stripes each having multiple portions distributed across multiple storage devices. The storage system is also configured to detect a failure of at least one of the storage devices, and responsive to the detected failure, to determine for each of two or more remaining ones of the storage devices a number of stripe portions, stored on that storage device, that are part of stripes impacted by the detected failure. The storage system is further configured to prioritize a particular one of the remaining storage devices for rebuilding of its stripe portions that are part of the impacted stripes, based at least in part on the determined numbers of stripe portions. The storage system illustratively balances the rebuilding of the stripe portions of the impacted stripes across the remaining storage devices.”

The patent application was filed on November 25, 2019 (Appl. No.16/693,858).

Mapping storage extents into resiliency groups
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (11,023,147) developed by Shang, Rongrong, Han, Geng, Gao, Jian, Xu, Xinlei, Zhang, Xiaobo, Beijing, China, and Lee, Shuyu, Acton, MA, for “mapping storage extents into resiliency groups.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”TTechniques for mapping large storage extents (‘ubers’) into storage drive groups (‘resiliency groups’) in a data storage system. The techniques can include, as the capacity of storage drives included in a first resiliency group is used up, forming a second resiliency group with one or more new storage drives. The disclosed techniques can further include allocating one or more storage drives from the first resiliency group to the second resiliency group to satisfy a requirement of a predetermined RAID storage configuration, and performing a reduced number of data movement operations to assure that data slices of one or more ubers initially assigned to the first resiliency group are allocated to storage drives in the same first or second resiliency group. In this way, data storage systems can be made to support a desired storage drive expansion with a reduced number of new storage drives.”

The patent application was filed on October 10, 2019 (Appl. No.16/598,585).

Managing redundant array of independent disks
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (11,003,374) developed by Han, Geng, Gao, Jian, Li, Liam Xiongcheng, Gao, Hongpo, and Dong, Jibing, Beijing, China, for “methods, devices and computer program products for managing a redundant array of independent disks.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to methods, devices and computer program products for managing a redundant array of independent disks (RAID). The method comprises: in response to a number of a plurality of disks occupied by the RAID exceeding a first threshold, determining a first number of disk pairs to be disassociated among the plurality of disks, the first number of disk pairs at least comprising a first disk and a second disk associated with each other, and a first extent in the first disk and a second extent in the second disk being included in a same RAID extent of the RAID. The method further comprises determining a third disk for migrating at least one of the first extent and the second extent among the plurality of disks. Besides, the method further comprises migrating the at least one extent to the third disk to disassociate the first disk and the second disk so that a second number of disk pairs associated with each other among the plurality of disks is below a second threshold.”

The patent application was filed on October 22, 2018 (Appl. No.16/166,476).

Fittest stripe selection for storage
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,996,882) developed by Kamran, Lior, Rishon LeZion, Israel, Soukhman, Alex, Raanana, Israel, Taube, Marcelo, and Gazit, Ronen, Tel Aviv, Israel, for a “fittest stripe selection for storage of data in storage systems.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method for storing data in a storage system is provided, the method including: receiving a request to store data in a RAID volume of the storage system, selecting a stripe block size that is supported by the RAID volume, the RAID volume including a plurality of stripes that are formed of blocks having the selected stripe block size, and identifying a given one of the plurality of stripes that includes enough free space to accommodate the data and storing the data in the given stripe, the given stripe including a smaller amount of free space than at least some of the stripes in the plurality that have sufficient free space to accommodate the data.”

The patent application was filed on January 29, 2019 (Appl. No.16/260,480).

Processing recover state input/output request
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,983,874) developed by Kang, Jianbin, Gao, Jian, Han, Geng, Gao, Hongpo, and Sun, Lei, Beijing, China, for “processing a recover state input/output request.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage system comprises a cache device and a storage device group. A technique involves: the cache device of the storage system receiving from a host an input/output (I/O) request for the storage system, and upon determining that the storage system is just recovered from a hardware failure and the storage device group in the storage system is in a ready but degraded state, safely performing data write/read by sending a new Recover State I/O request to the storage device group. Such a technique may be used to reduce a Data Lost window, reduce or avoid data loss. In addition, such a technique may be implemented in a current RAID technology, namely, can be used in combination with the current RAID technology.”

The patent application was filed on January 16, 2019 (Appl. No.16/249,149).

Automatic prefill of storage with conditioning of RAID stripes
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,983,860) developed by Moore, William F., Attleboro, MA, Kucherov, Anton, Dudley, MA, and Binia, Boaz, Framingham, MA, for an “automatic prefill of a storage system with conditioning of raid stripes.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A storage system comprises a plurality of storage nodes each comprising one or more storage devices. Each of the storage nodes further comprises a processor coupled to a memory. The storage system is configured to prefill a given stripe across multiple ones of the storage devices with data blocks to a first fullness level, to designate at least a subset of the prefilled data blocks of the stripe as available for use in prefilling one or more logical storage volumes of the storage system, and to prefill a given one of the logical storage volumes to a second fullness level utilizing selected ones of the available data blocks. The given stripe across multiple ones of the storage devices illustratively comprises a RAID stripe.”

The patent application was filed on June 19, 2019 (Appl. No.16/446,161).

Managing RAID storage in storage systems
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,977,130) developed by Dalmatov, Nickolay Alexandrovich, and Shatunov, Vladimir, Saint Petersburg, Russia, for “method, apparatus and computer program product for managing raid storage in data storage systems.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques are disclosed for managing data storage in data storage systems. The techniques comprise providing a number of RAID groups. Each RAID group relating to a respective set of data storage drives that support RAID storage in the RAID group. The techniques also comprise monitoring I/O operations to identify read-active data stored by data storage drives of a RAID group. The techniques also comprise copying the read-active data from the data storage drives of the RAID group to data storage drives of another RAID group.”

The patent application was filed on August 1, 2018 (Appl. No.16/051,805).

Providing services in storage system
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,936,566) developed by Braun, Robin C., Hollis, NH, Sahin, Adnan, Needham, MA, Russo, Fidelma, Sudbury, MA, Findlen, Greg, Hopkinton, MA, Zhao, Sonny, Waltham, MA, Gladziszewski, Kate, Boston, MA, and Lally, Marion, Canton, MA, for “providing services in a data storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A catalog of services defines which storage-related services are applied to each service level of storage where storage capacity is managed and allocated in terms of chunks of capacity at different service levels. Each service level is defined based on one or more of tiered storage policy settings, drive size, drive speed, drive count, RAID protection, engine fractions, bandwidth and availability and characterized by one or more performance capabilities. Examples of services in the catalog include but are not limited to mobility, availability, continuity, and recovery services. Any combination of services, or no services at all, can be associated with a given service level of storage. Services may be performed at different performance levels. Further, services may be provided on-demand and billed on a usage basis.”

The patent application was filed on June 21, 2018 (Appl. No.16/013,989).

Readable medium for managing storage
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,936,419) developed by Xu, Tao, Gao, Hongpo, Dong, Jibing, Gao, Jian, Feng, Changyu,and Han, Geng, Beijing, China, for “method, device and computer readable medium for managing a storage system.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and a device for managing storage system. In an embodiment, a plurality of RAID stripes to be reconstructed in the storage system are determined. A first RAID stripe is selected from a plurality of RAID stripes based on a plurality of I/O load states at a disk extent level for the plurality of RAID stripes at a first storage processor in the storage system, the first RAID having a high I/O load at the disk extent level. Then, a first disk extent for reconstructing the first RAID stripe is determined and the first storage processor is configured to reconstruct data for the first RAID stripe at the first disk extent. A corresponding device to implement the method is further disclosed.”

The patent application was filed on October 26, 2018 (Appl. No.16/172,030).

Coordinating access operations
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,929,065) developed by Gao, Hongpo, Gao, Jian, Han, Geng, Kang, Jianbin, and Dong, Jibing, Beijing, China, for “method, device and computer program product for coordinating access operations.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Techniques coordinate access operations. Such techniques involve: obtaining first statistical data of a first set of access operations associated with a first storage resource pool in the RAID and second statistical data of a second set of access operations associated with a second storage resource pool in the RAID, the first set of access operations including a background access operation and a user access operation, and the second set of access operations including at least a user access operation, determining, based on the first and second statistical data, availability of a memory shared by the first and second storage resource pools, and adjusting, based on the availability, the background access operation in the first set of access operations to control a capacity of the memory occupied by the background access operation. Accordingly, the response time of the storage system for the user access operations can be shortened, etc.”

The patent application was filed on June 20, 2019 (Appl. No.16/447,129).

RAID 1–half compressed data storage
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,929,040) developed by Trachtman, Michael, Arlington, MA, for a “RAID 1–half compressed data storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”In a half-compressed RAID 1 system a first copy of a data set is maintained in an uncompressed state and a second copy of the data set is maintained in a compressed state, where corresponding compressed and uncompressed blocks are stored on different physical devices. The result is RAID 1 reliability with storage space consumption similar to RAID 5-3+1. Compression striping in which the compressed and uncompressed data is distributed across two or more storage devices can be used to reduce data access response time. Further, delayed compression can be used to reduce the time required to perform WRITE ops. Compression may also be performed based on resource availability or storage tier hierarchy.”

The patent application was filed on September 28, 2011 (Appl. No.13/247,173).

Storage media for rebuilding RAID
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,922,177) developed by Gong, Shaoqin, Gao, Jian, Xu, Xinlei, Han, Geng, and Dong, Jibing, Beijing, China, for “method, device and computer readable storage media for rebuilding redundant array of independent disks.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to method, device and computer readable storage media for rebuilding redundant array of independent disks (RAID). The method comprises: in response to detecting at least one fault disk in the RAID, adding a new disk to the RAID for rebuilding, determining, according to a mapping table, a first set of storage blocks marked as ‘free”’in the at least one fault disk, the mapping table indicating usage state of storage space in the RAID, and writing a predetermined value into a second set of storage blocks corresponding to the first group of storage blocks in the new disk.”

The patent application was filed on April 17, 2018 (Appl. No.15/955,082).

Processing I/O requests using RAID
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,922,002) developed by Kang, Jamin Jianbin, Li, Liam Xiongcheng, Gao, Jian, Han, Geng, and Xu, Xinlei, Beijing, China, for “method, device and computer readable storage media for rebuilding redundant array of independent disks.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Implementations of the subject matter described herein provide a storage management method and system. The storage management method comprises: in response to receiving a write request, dividing data to be written into a plurality of data blocks with a predetermined size, the plurality of data blocks having their respective logic block addresses, evenly mapping, based on the logic block addresses, the plurality of data blocks to a plurality of RAID extents of a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) mapping the plurality of data blocks in the plurality of RAID extents to the disk, so that the plurality of data blocks are distributed in order of size of logic block addresses in the disk.”

The patent application was filed on January 23, 2020 (Appl. No.16/750,166).

Technique to support disk extents of different sizes for mapped RAID
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,908,997) developed by Vankamamidi, Vamsi K., Hopkinton, MA, Lee, Shuyu, Acton, MA, and Proulx, Ronald D., Boxborough, MA, for “simple and efficient technique to support disk extents of different sizes for mapped RAID.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A technique is directed to storing data on a plurality of storage devices of a data storage array. The technique involves, on each storage device of the plurality of storage devices, providing large disk extents and small disk extents for allocation to RAID extents. The technique further involves forming, from the large disk extents, a user-data RAID extent to store user data for the data storage array. The technique further involves forming, from the small disk extents, an internal-metadata RAID extent to store internal metadata for the data storage array. In some arrangements, spare space is reserved on one or more storage devices between large and small disk extents.”

The patent application was filed on July 30, 2019 (Appl. No.16/526,547).

Managing storage
EMC IP Holding Company LLC, Hopkinton, MA, has been assigned a patent (10,901,843) developed by Cassano, Marc, Mendon, MA, Foley, Robert, Clinton, MA, Cummins, Daniel, Hudson, NJ, and Heng, Socheavy, Framingham, MA, for “managing data storage.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”Disclosed herein are techniques for use in managing data storage. For example, in one embodiment, the techniques comprise determining a size of the write request. The size of the write request equating to half or more non-parity data portions in a full stripe of data but less than all non-parity data portions in the full stripe. The techniques comprise performing a process based on the size that includes reading a parity and one or more missing non-parity data portions in the full stripe, verifying the coherency of the missing non-parity data portions by comparing a checksum of the parity and a checksum of the missing non-parity data portions, determining a new parity based on the new data and the missing non-parity data portions, and writing, in response to verifying the coherency of the missing non-parity data portions, the new data and the new parity to a RAID group without writing the one or more missing non-parity data portions to the RAID group, wherein the new data and the new parity are written to the RAID group with a checksum.”

The patent application was filed on June 5, 2019 (Appl. No.16/432,680).